Text | Annette
Edit | Annette
In the first quarter of this year, there are frequent blockbuster dramas, and Netflix's Korean drama "Dark Glory" is not to be mentioned; In terms of American dramas, HBO's "The Last of the Survivors" scored 9.1 points on Douban; and in terms of Japanese dramas, Japanese TV contributed the best work of the year - "Restart Life", with Douban as high as 9.4 points.
Compared with the sci-fi thriller "The Last of the Survivors" adapted from the classic game of the same name, and the revenge drama "Dark Glory" of the big heroine involving the social topic of school violence, the fantasy comedy "Restart Life" that tells the cycle of life seems to be a bit "small trouble".
It can be seen from the name alone that "Restart Life" has won a good hand of "cool drama", if it is given to Korean dramas, it is as passionate revenge as "The Little Son of the Chaebol Family", and if it is given to domestic dramas, it may be such as "Charlotte Troubles" and the like, to get first love and amass money.
In short, no matter where it is placed, it is a big open golden finger, allowing the protagonist to use the information difference to create a life experience that is vastly different from the previous life, so as to satisfy the audience's curiosity about the ultimate life on the peak of life, as for whether the ending has some understanding and reflection, it is not too important, the important thing is the "cool" in the process.
Starring Sakura Ando, a group of big coffee actors guest starred in "Restart Life" but completely opened up a different way, continuing the usual healing, warmth, light comedy mode of Japanese dramas, so relatively speaking, its plot is "light" and "trivial", will surprise the audience who hold the mentality of watching this mode of "cool drama", the heroine Asami Kondo has gone through a total of five lives, the first three lives are almost the same life, and the last two lives have ups and downs.
And Asami's daily life is extremely ordinary, and the main quest after her reincarnation can also be said to be "not worth mentioning", but the point is this, in this case, why is "Restart Life" so good-looking? Can you still get such a high rating? That's the power.
Let's take a look at Asami's situation first.
Asami is a civil servant at the city office, living with her parents and sister, two girlfriends who grew up often partying, complaining about work every day, living an ordinary but still happy life, one day at the age of 33, Asami suffered a car accident.
Asami dies and goes to a pure white place to reincarnate, but the teller tells her that she will become a great anteater in southeastern Guatemala in the next life. Nani? It turns out that not everyone dies and is reincarnated as a human again! After consultation, Asami learned that this was because the yin virtue accumulated during her lifetime was not enough, but no one knew how and how much to accumulate yin virtue.
In the face of the photo of the big anteater, no one can accept it, at this time the teller told her that it is okay not to want to become a large anteater, then restart the previous life and live it again. Asami decisively accepted the offer.
Asami, who came to the second life with memories of her past life, started as a baby, in order to accumulate yin virtue, she could not talk and walk in advance, and did not show the intelligence of an adult in childhood, and would do some good things such as picking up garbage every day, and changed to a job as a pharmacy examiner.
In the process of growing up, she discovered the extramarital affair between the teacher and the classmate's father in kindergarten from an adult perspective and successfully prevented it; After work, she bumps into the once most hated middle school teacher on the train who is framed for salty pig hands, and Asami succeeds in saving him; Because he studied medicine in this life, he successfully found that there was a problem with the medicine taken by his grandfather, which extended his grandfather's life; Later, together with his girlfriend, he solved a small relationship problem that was deceived by a married scumbag.
In this way, Asami in the second life lived almost exactly the same life as in her previous life, going to the same school, living circle, and girlfriends, and then one day in her 30s, one was inattentive and quacked again.
This time she was notified that she would be reincarnated as the Pacific Ocean big-eyed mackerel, a fish that Asami loves to eat. The teller told her that it was okay, and that she could restart again if she was not satisfied, but there was a limit to the number of restarts, but it could not be disclosed in advance.
So Asami opened her third life. In this life, she decided to make a little change, and because she liked watching TV series since she was a child, she changed to a job as a TV series producer. This work involves a lot of Japanese drama memes, and Japanese drama fans will be very surprised.
Of course, in this process, Asami has not forgotten her main tasks - to stop the kindergarten teacher's extramarital affair, clear the innocence of the middle school teacher who was framed as a "salty pig hand", stop her grandfather from continuing to take problematic medicine, and stop Fa Xiao from being deceived by scumbags. Every time she needs to calculate the time, although it is a very daily thing, it is very thrilling after bringing it into the perspective of the protagonist.
As a result, this time at the age of 29, when he finally survived to become a TV series producer and successfully filmed his first TV series, he encountered an accident again.
This time Asami is really a little crazy, she really wants to see how the TV series she made is, and the three lives add up to almost 100 years, after all, she is really serious about life from beginning to end, really a little tired.
This time, she could only be reincarnated as a Hokkaido sea urchin. No way, keep restarting.
Coming to the fourth life, Asami knew that copying and pasting life like this would not work, so she worked hard since she was a child, after all, she had learned the same knowledge several times, so this time with hard work, she has been the first student in the school since she was a child, and finally she studied medicine, entered the research institute, and was committed to contributing to the cause of human beings overcoming diseases.
In the process, she still did not forget to complete those set tasks. But unfortunately, due to her immersion in learning since she was a child, she became an honor student who was difficult to contact in the eyes of others, and she gradually distanced herself from her previous girlfriend, which made Asami very frustrated in her heart. But at the same time, she becomes friends with the first Truth in previous lives, and at a party many years later, Asami learns that Truth is also restarting her life and has reached the fifth life!
And the main quest of truth in these lifetimes is more like the setting that the protagonist has, and the truth is constantly rebooted in order to save his former best friend.
It turned out that at the beginning, Truth and Asami, as well as Asami's other two girlfriends, Natsu Hao and Mabel, were sisters of four, but the truth of the first life eventually witnessed Natsu Hao and Mabel being in a plane crash, so from the second life, Truth studied hard and missed becoming friends with the other three, because her goal in life was to become a captain and save everyone on the plane that Natsu Hao and Mabel were on, but failed repeatedly.
Asami's heart shock, who learned of this, was very great, she looked at the back of the truth, and thought of how great loneliness and pressure this friend who had lived for more than a hundred years should endure in her heart. Unfortunately, in this life, Truth finally became the captain and successfully boarded the plane, but she, her two girlfriends and the entire crew did not return luckily.
Asami lived alone for several years, but also ended her life again under another accident.
But surprisingly, this time, Asami can finally be reincarnated as a human and is also told that there is one last chance to restart. Under the events of Truth, Asami resolutely chooses to return to her friends, and prepares with Truth to become a captain from an early age, and does her best to save everyone on that plane.
In the end, they got their wish in the face of frequent accidents, and at the age of 40, they became best friends again with two cherished girlfriends, and the four finally lived in a high-tech nursing home together in old age and died.
"Restart Life" tells a unique reincarnation story in only ten episodes, and the core of its "anti-routine" is that the concept setting of "accumulation of yin virtue" can be reincarnated as a person, avoiding the protagonist from doing whatever he wants, taking ordinary life as the core content, which contains a lot of information, and a lot of idle writing that has nothing to do with the main line but is extremely interesting.
For example, in the first episode, Asami's sister tells her that her father's private money is hidden in her shoes, there used to be a telephone booth by the roadside, and the girlfriends reminisce about various anecdotes of childhood classmates together, and so on, which seem to be trivial small talk, but in the second life all become the key information for Asami to complete the mission.
At the same time, the butterfly effect between each lifetime is extremely small, and all of Asami's actions can almost only affect a small number of people around her.
For example, in the fourth life, she became a medical researcher and published some papers to overcome diseases, and in the fifth life she was anxious whether because of her disappearance, so that these studies were not discovered, and then many people suffering from these diseases could not be treated, but in the end she found that the research had already yielded results.
In addition, various comedy passages in the play are hidden in a large number of lines, such as Asami and her colleagues in each life will spit on work during meals; For example, Japan's "reading the air" culture has penetrated into any bridge of this drama, and the slightly awkward and unspeakable sense of atmosphere has been taken just right.
For example, Asami became a TV series producer in the third life, and wrote a script based on her experience of restarting her life, but was complained that such a life is too dull, shouldn't she win the Nobel Prize or be a savior after being reborn? In the end, the script was changed beyond recognition and became another cool drama. Official spit is the deadliest one.
Of course, what makes the audience happiest is that this is a pure story about female friendship, in which there are no scumbags making trouble, and there is no emotional breakdown caused by various horse-grabbing incidents. They can be best friends from a young age or become best friends at the age of 40; They can be constantly reborn just to save their girlfriend's life, to endure nearly 200 years of repetitive life, even if it is just to chat with them about TV series, stars, and complain about former classmates and life trivia.
"Restart Life" tells a heavy friendship with a light narrative, and lays out the thickness of this relationship with the trivialities repeated in each life, making people feel infinitely that the friendship between girls is really beautiful, and 30+ female stories can be presented so cordially and warmly.
This is also written from the side, even if you restart your life, life is still lived by yourself, and you have to live like that, those big things that make you nervous are still insignificant in the eyes of others, and those people you cherish are still the best chapters in life.
Of course, reincarnation stories or time-traveling narratives can very well reflect the pursuit and anxiety of the current people, and Korean dramas are a leap and challenge to class; In Japan, the generation born after 1987 was named "Loose Generation", and after 2002, "Loose Education" was introduced, so "Healing Department" became the mainstream of Japanese dramas; Looking at domestic dramas, what are we pursuing?